Unemployment and job vacancies

Unemployment rates published by the European Commission (Eurostat) and conform to International Labour Organisation (ILO) guidelines. They refer to persons actively seeking work as a share of the labour force, using harmonised criteria and definitions.

Eurostat started to collect quarterly frequency job vacancy data in 2003. The data are also included as part of the Principle European Economic Indicator (PEEI) data set. The series were, until 2009, collected on the basis of a “gentlemen"s agreement” basis and, as such, were not fully harmonised or complete. From 2010 the reporting of quarterly data is under Regulation (EC) No 453/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008 on quarterly statistics on Community job vacancies. Job vacancy statistics are compiled on the basis of data provided by the Member States. At the request of some countries, some national data are received but not published by Eurostat. These data are used only for the calculation of European aggregates but are available to the ESCB for strictly internal use only. A quarterly press release containing the data was first released with the publication of Q1 2014 results.